


The Weight of the World on His Shoulders

by xiuxi



Category: Chihayafuru
Genre: Gen, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 20:04:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1098067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xiuxi/pseuds/xiuxi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karuta is forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Weight of the World on His Shoulders

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jan/gifts).



There were many things Mashima Taichi envied Chihaya but the way she could focus on karuta, and karuta only, was the most important one. For Chihaya this was easy. Her world was comprised of two things, karuta and then everything else. Karuta was the center and front in her mind and everything else was just an afterthought. Things like friendship, achievements, family and love factored in her world, but they were all related to and dependent on karuta. Chihaya could view her life from many perspectives but what she was seeing was dependent on the karuta-colored glasses she wore and viewed the world with. 

For Mashima Taichi things weren't that simple. He shouldered more responsibilities, for one. There was the responsibility of being the president of the Mizusawa High School Karuta Club, of course. Then there were the obligations he had towards his family; being an ace student and and an ace son and an all around ace, really. Finally, there were the responsibilities he had towards himself, the ideal person he held himself up to and aspired to be. 

“Taichi,” his mother once said. “Being successful is like wearing the weight of the world on your shoulders. It is heavy and it's hard and only a truly outstanding person can carry it off. You must always strive to be truly outstanding, Taichi. It is what you were born to do, after all.”

Taichi thought that he was good at shrugging his mother's somewhat unreasonable demands off but some of her words always lingered in the back of his mind. 

“ _Truly outstanding_.” “ _Successful_.” “ _The weight of the world on your shoulders_.”

Taichi had always worked hard. When he was younger he pretended to manage his grades without much effort but he had always slaved over his books under his mother's watchful eye. His good looks were innate, but Taichi knew which hair product to use and when, and he paid proper attention to fashion. He had to teach himself to be nice, he tried hard to be charming and his mother had instilled the importance of networking in him from an impressionable age. He was painfully aware of the less savory aspects of his personality and tried his best to minimize the traits in himself he didn't like. 

***

It was a quite ordinary day in December, with gray skies and Christmas looming on the horizon. They were sitting on the tatami mats in the club room as usual. Chihaya played Nishida, Sumire played Tsukuba and Taichi played Komano. Kana read the cards in her high-pitched, perfectly nasal tone of voice. Komano had been getting better, Taichi noticed. His swings seemed cleaner and faster somehow. They both played rather strategical, defensive karuta. No faults, a lot of thought into card placement and no hints of the aggressive attacking mode Chihaya was known for. Dr. Harada would probably grit his teeth in frustration if he saw them, but this was the way Taichi played karuta nowadays. 

Komano took a card and Taichi retaliated in kind by taking two. Komano was sitting perfectly still on his knees, no visible tension apart from a pair of tiny sweat drops on his forehead. Taichi let out a deep sigh and relaxed his shoulders. He was letting his arms reach far and wide, taking cards as fast as he could, taking cards without thinking first, just playing, focus, focus, breathe and then swing. As he played, and he could actually feel a vague sense of excitement; this was not just a chore any more. And then he could see the finish line. Only two more cards to go. 

He took one card and he could feel the exhilaration mixing with a familiar panic that he would probably fuck this one up again. But he exhaled once again, took his final card, and won. 

Komano exhaled too and with his accumulated frustration he muttered something under his breath.

“I am going to win, you know. Next time, it will be me who places first in class.”

Taichi's brain went huh, and then he understood. Komano wasn't talking about karuta. He was talking about school. He was thinking about having the best grades in class, taking over the number one spot that Taichi had held on to since the beginning of high school. 

“It doesn't matter,” Taichi said, and while he was saying it he wondered if it was true. If his grades fell, he was going to stop playing karuta. Or so his mother said. “I'm not going to stop playing karuta,” he thought to himself while they where cleaning up the club room. “I'll never stop playing karuta. I'll still be playing karuta when I get old, like Dr. Harada. Me and Chihaya, and Arata too, will probably sit on a floor somewhere and play karuta when we turn eighty. I won't give in until my knees give up and probably not then either. You do not know it when you start playing, but karuta is sort of like a curse, it never ends. Karuta is forever.”

He thought about those words again when he walked home on the dark and rainy streets. 

“ _Truly outstanding_.” “ _Successful_.” “ _The weight of the world on your shoulders _.”__

He must decide on what really mattered. He had to dedicate himself completely. He had to work harder, think better, hear clearer, swing faster. He had to learn to beat the people he absolutely needed to beat. For Taichi, karuta had begun as a fun hobby and transitioned into a stepping stone to get closer to Chihaya. Now it was completely different, he realized. He was doing this for his own sake. And for Taichi, who rarely did things for his own sake, that was actually quite important. 

“ _You must always strive to be truly outstanding, Taichi_.”

And he knew what that meant and what he must do. He would have to practice like he had never practiced before. He would have to neglect his school work, his mother's opinions be damned, to fit in more practice. He would have to stop being a coward and stand up for himself towards her. He wasn't going to be a doctor. He was going to play karuta. 

He would learn from the best and play with the best, and when he was thinking about it he already knew them. He would play karuta and he would strive for the top and he would have fun. Then, he would borrow the karuta-colored glasses from Chihaya and view the world through them. And then he would win. He was ready to take the world on.

And be the Meijin.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Miaoujones for the beta!


End file.
